UKIGUMO – floating clouds, Montpellier, France

Architecture duo on cloud nine

MoNo are walking on air with cloud-inspired installation at the 5th Festival of Lively Architecture in Montpellier

From 17th-20th June the city of Montpellier hosted the 5th Festival of Lively Architecture, conducted by the association CHAMP LIBRE. The purpose of this festival was to transform the historical town into a mass gallery for a limited time period, showcasing some inspirational artistic creations. 11 teams participated in the event, with 10 teams chosen from 170 architectural applicants alongside one guest team.

The festival’s theme this year was entitled ‘Between shadow and light’, encapsulated perfectly by Japanese architecture duo MoNo's billowing installation entitled ‘UKIGUMO – floating clouds’. The 7,000 visitors to the festival were treated to this stimulating comparison which intended to ‘place Japanese space into Western space’, set in a stunning courtyard of stone columns and sculptures. MoNo explain: “Many thin and pliant pillars stood closely as a motif of Japanese columns confronting Western ones…'UKIGUMO – floating clouds’ was added as a device of connection between these two different worlds.”

Non-woven fabric and balloons were set over the Japanese space in an effort to place many different elements on one stage, with colourless balloons selected ‘because it could change the colour to white with time, and it means a free transfer between medieval times and today’. The art work has been developed from the presentation theme ‘Japanese independent space sense’, which was treated in MoNo’s installation art work ‘Light and Atmosphere in the Japanese way’ in Vienna, with the coordination of ORTE architectural network in 2009.